


Thoughts On The Use Of Weapons Of Mass Destruction

by Aaron_The_8th_Demon



Series: After The World Ends [3]
Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: Additional Warnings in Chapter Notes, Albert saves the day a lot, Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Angst with a Happy Ending, Autistic Cooper, Graphic Depictions of Illness, M/M, Major Character Injury, Pining, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Nuclear War, Pre-Slash, Prequel, Radiation Sickness, Road Trip from Hell, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:55:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 14,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27749356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaron_The_8th_Demon/pseuds/Aaron_The_8th_Demon
Summary: When he wakes up he has a headache and the staff are running around in a panic. There are sixteen other patients who all need private rooms but they don’t have that many available. There’s burns none of them have ever seen before, not like Harry’s burns but a strange almost sunburn kind of thing even though the sky is choked with ash. Some of them who somehow managed to get back from out of state have the plaid from their flannel shirts scorched right onto their flesh, they bleed everywhere and throw up.Harry gets out of bed and struggles to the door so he can look out into the hall, and this chaos is what he sees. Scared nurses and flustered doctors and people, patients, victims.
Relationships: Dale Cooper & Albert Rosenfield, Dale Cooper/Harry Truman
Series: After The World Ends [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1924501
Comments: 46
Kudos: 19





	1. September 1990: On Radioactive Fallout

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaannnnnddddd we're back with more of Harry and Coop suffering bouts of radiation poisoning! :D
> 
> This fic is seriously ugly in spots, and not necessarily in the same ways the first two fics were ugly. Trigger warnings will be posted in the endnotes of each chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings in endnotes.

It’s the two guys from the Twin Peaks civil defense office who come for him first as he staggers out of his truck and then drops to his knees in the parking lot - they’re wearing gas masks and rubber gloves, and one of them has this bright yellow _thing_ that he waves at Harry. It makes a horrible crackling noise and they both shake their heads.

“Sheriff, where _were_ you?”

“Seattle,” he says, and then throws up.

His clothes rub on his hurt skin and that just makes everything worse. At least he got the handkerchief off his face first - it has blood on it from the burn across his cheek. He doesn’t think he can get up and walk on his own right now. He barely was able to drive back like this, an eight hour trip through falling ash after he was exposed to that gas and got burned all over.

Harry is first stripped naked and scrubbed right there by the doors, then they stick him in a patient gown and bring him into the emergency department. He’s throwing up a second time as the two guys talk to Doc Hayward and insist that he needs to be away from the other patients, and that the nurses need gloves and masks and gowns before they touch him. He’s dangerous, somehow. Or maybe everyone else is dangerous for him because of the way he’s sick.

The nurses are all panicking, Harry can hear them gossiping fearfully right outside the door of his room: how the ash falling from the sky is radioactive, it came from somewhere, Canada got hit. Maybe one will go off here, too. He doesn’t think that’s likely, Twin Peaks isn’t any kind of tactical target. The air force base forty minutes away has missile defense.

None of his wounds are seen right away. Instead, they shave his head first, because the civil defense guys said to. Harry will never see any of his clothes (or his wool jacket, or his Stetson hat) ever again, because they’re so contaminated. And after all that finally they come up with bandages for him, these slimy wet dressings which plaster his chest and back. He gets an IV of something and then passes out for awhile.

When he wakes up he has a headache and the staff are running around in a panic. There are sixteen other patients who all need private rooms but they don’t have that many available. There’s burns none of them have ever seen before, not like Harry’s burns but a strange almost sunburn kind of thing even though the sky is choked with ash. Some of them who somehow managed to get back from out of state have the plaid from their flannel shirts scorched right onto their flesh, they bleed everywhere and throw up.

Harry gets out of bed and struggles to the door so he can look out into the hall, and this chaos is what he sees. Scared nurses and flustered doctors and people, patients, victims.

Nobody else has chemical burns, it’s just him, because he was in Seattle looking for Frank. So he’s the only one with the gross wet bandages. A nurse comes to the door to tell him to lie down and then closes it. Harry feels like his legs will go out from under him, so he does.

* * *

Dale and Albert hover around the radio. They’re the only two who are attempting to be at least marginally proactive about things - the other five appear to be workers from a government office building and are huddled together, talking quietly or sometimes crying.

The report comes - chemical weapons are suspected to have been deployed in Seattle and San Jose, whereas Portland and Los Angeles have simply been obliterated by SLBMs. Of course that doesn’t necessarily mean anything, Twin Peaks is quite some distance from Seattle. But the radiation readings for Washington state are all over the place. There’s fallout drifting in from Canada, one nuclear strike did land somewhere and cause a forest fire which only exacerbates the problem there.

Further reports arrive over the shortwave, on the military bands. DC above them has now sustained somewhere in the neighborhood of five to eight hits from ICBMs. New York City, Albany, Boston, Halifax, Toronto, Dallas, Atlanta - all have sustained attacks from chemical and/or nuclear weapons, direct or indirect. Novichok nerve agents are suspected to have been deployed to several areas in the Midwest, though this can’t be reliably confirmed.

“The phone lines will be down everywhere now,” Albert comments.

“Yes, I know,” Dale says, nodding. “Isn’t it funny the way these things work out? My transfer was approved yesterday and I had intended to fly up tomorrow. Imagine if I was already there now.”

In a blast shelter designed for at least twenty people, only seven are present, none of whom are the intended occupants. The warning came too late for so many, and in the past twelve hours it’s in no way uncertain that all of DC (and most of the immediately surrounding area) has been razed. There’s a high-range Geiger counter in the wall by the exit which has a sensor outside somewhere, and its needle has been off the scale since Albert first noticed it and turned it on.

Thoughts of fallout and chemical weapons send thrills of fear through Dale. He worries for Harry, for his other friends in Twin Peaks. Do they have means to protect themselves there? How many injuries might’ve happened? Is Harry alright? Harry must be alright, Dale has been surrounded by death his entire life and he’s sure he’d know somehow if anything awful has befallen his friend.

“Here.”

Albert shoves an unopened MRE into Dale’s hands.

“Oh, I’m not-”

“You’ll eat that or I’ll fucking force-feed it to you,” Albert snaps.

“But you’re a pacifist.”

“Eat, Cooper.”

“Albert-”

“Starving yourself won’t help your redneck boyfriend. Eat.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” is Dale’s automated response, because Albert has been making fun of him for months over his crush on Harry.

“Eat the MRE, Coop.”

Grudgingly, Dale begins to peel open the package, largely because he’s not interested in his colleague’s nagging. He doesn’t bother with the flameless ration heater and instead consumes the entree at room temperature, but is ultimately unable to finish due to his acute lack of appetite. He’s much too worried about Harry to feel hungry despite the fact that he hasn’t eaten since they entered the blast shelter.

“Albert,” Dale asks as he sets aside the half-eaten food packet, “what would be your best guess?”

Albert knows him too well and perfectly understands what he’s referring to.

“Without a detonation within a certain radius, which as far as we know hasn’t happened, it’s not possible for enough fallout to accumulate in that area to be immediately lethal. Providing he isn’t in Seattle and stays inside, he’s fine right now.”

“Thank you.”

“Your taste in men is terrible.”

“Noted,” Dale says flatly, tired of hearing that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings:
> 
> 1\. Depictions of acute radiation syndrome.  
> 2\. Depictions of injuries following exposure to chemical warfare agents.


	2. October 1990: On Making Plans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings in endnotes.

After feeding his chickens, Harry stumbles back inside and lies down. His body aches and his nose is bleeding again, and he’s waiting for Doc Hayward to come up and change his bandages. By this point it’s pretty obvious he’s gonna have some scarring, but he’ll be happy when he’s healed up at all.

Hawk comes by first, bearing food.

“How’re you holding up, Har?”

“Same,” he grumbles, sitting upright on the couch and watching Hawk set down some soup on a side table. “Hey, I was thinking about something important earlier, I wanna run it by you.”

“Okay, what’s up?”

“This isn’t going away anytime soon. How many people are still in town?”

“A couple hundred I think, but a lot of ’em are planning on leaving.”

“Where the hell do they think they’re going?” Harry scoffs. “It’s worse in most places than it is here.”

“Go find family, I guess,” Hawk shrugs. “Anyway.”

“Yeah. So like I said, this isn’t going to stop and go back to normal. We gotta get on top’a everything now before winter hits, get everyone pulling in one direction and start pooling resources. Every man for himself isn’t gonna work, we’ll all be dead by Christmas if we don’t work together.”

“I was kinda thinking the same thing,” Hawk agrees. “Here, I’ll come back this afternoon and we’ll come up with some things. Something to think about, all the community leaders are gone except you. So it’ll have to be you who tells everyone this.”

Harry makes a face. “I don’t give speeches, Hawk.”

“If you won’t, then who?”

That shuts him up immediately; the worst part is realizing that Hawk’s right. He has to wonder how willing everybody will actually be to listen to him, though. He can manage people, but until now it’s been maybe a dozen employees, and that was when everyone was fed and paid and happy. Now they’re all cold and scrounging for food, breaking into the houses of former neighbors who either left or died in order to look for a can of beans. And he’s hurt, he’s sick, his friends bring him his meals because he can’t really leave the house.

Harry chokes down the can of soup and eats one of the apples that came from the trees in his yard last month; Andy and Lucy picked them for him because he couldn’t walk more than ten feet without throwing up or passing out. He used to give his apples to friends and coworkers, he has way more than he can eat on his own. Same with the eggs from his chickens. Now he’s got buckets and piles of both those things that are gonna go bad before he can use them all up. And looking at them now, Harry thinks he’s found a good place to start.

* * *

“When I see Harry again-”

“ _If,_ ” Albert insists. “ _If_ you see Harry again.”

Dale frowns at him. “Albert, the fact that I will see him again isn’t one that you’re welcome to call into question. Now as I was saying, when I see Harry again-”

“Coop, stop it. We’re stuck here and he’s not coming to us. You’re not going to see him again.”

“Albert, at this point I’m forced to ask if having a bit of positivity would in fact be enough to kill you.”

“By now? Probably,” Albert nods. “But I’m also sick of hearing you obsess over this. Think and/or talk about _something else._ ”

“How are the resources doing?”

“We’ve got at least a couple more months of food. I did find another storage, but it’s full of military gear, not MREs. That’s still good for us, though. We’ll need it when we eventually have to leave.”

“Excellent,” Dale agrees. “And when can we leave?”

“Not right now, the radioactivity topside is still lethal. Isotopes decay over time, but DC was hit so hard that the volume of nuclear byproducts is more than enough to make it immediately dangerous to life and health.”

“I want to leave, Albert.”

“I know.”

“Don’t you miss the sun?”

“Won’t you miss your skin after it falls off?” his colleague growls. “Because that’s what’ll happen if you go up right now.”

Dale allows himself a moment to sulk. “Albert…”

“I guarantee Twin Peaks isn’t going anywhere. Don’t you think your chances of getting there will be better if you’re still alive?”

It occurs to Dale that Albert actually has been taking him seriously and his mood lightens some. “I miss Harry.”

“I know you do. You haven’t shut up about him for the past five weeks.”

“Albert, I believe that during periods of extreme difficulty it’s paramount to have a goal to fix on. It’ll help get you through to the end.”

“Great.”

“What will your goal be?”

“Keeping you alive despite the fact that you know nothing about the hazards of nuclear fallout and the possibility of lingering nerve agents.”

Dale frowns. “Do you really have so little faith in my sense of self-preservation?”

“Yes,” Albert says bluntly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings:
> 
> 1\. Depictions of acute radiation syndrome.  
> 2\. Discussion of death by radiation exposure.


	3. December 1990: On Desperate Circumstances

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings in endnotes.

_Do you tell people about me, Harry? Dale asks. He picks up a package of steaks from out of the river. They need to know that soon the sun will cook all the trees._

_What’s wrong with the trees? Harry asks. He really wants those steaks, they’re big and dripping with fat._

_They both put the steaks down on a chair. Dale climbs on Harry’s back and hangs on because he needs help. Harry walks into the house and gets in bed with Dale still hugging him._

Harry opens his eyes. There’s a little bit of light coming around the blanket over the window, just enough that he can see the thick cloud of steam as he breathes. He pulls the bedding even more tightly around himself because he doesn’t want to get up when he’s warm.

It makes sense for him to dream about food. He’s been eating nothing but saltine crackers for the past… fuck, he’s not sure how long actually, and that coyote doesn’t count. Because if he really wants to he can run out and bag a deer, so the real food is for people who can’t do that. But this also leads to thoughts of Dale, because he’s looking for his friend. He has to look, he’s sure that Dale will come here eventually. There’s a stack of photocopies in the station that they made before the generator there finally ran dry, a sketch of Dale that Andy drew so that Harry can carry a picture around and show it to people while he’s out looking for supplies.

Harry forces himself to get out of bed, and then it’s a race to get dressed before he freezes to death in his own house. Layers of wool over his thermals, winter clothes on top of that. Boots tie over two pairs of socks, puffy gloves that make it so he can’t bend his fingers all the way, a trapper’s hat with flaps that snap under his chin. Harry pulls his hood up over that and then goes outside - he has to walk to the station because they’re running out of gasoline, so his truck stays parked right where it is. He hopes the battery didn’t freeze last night because he’ll have a hell of a time starting it again later if it did.

Harry’s breakfast is some dry, stale cornflakes and a glass of water. He’s still hungry as he leaves with Hawk to go hunting, and he’s pretty sure he’s not gonna stop being hungry tonight either. If they get a deer, great - they can bring it back to turn into stew for the sick and disabled, and then try again tomorrow. Maybe if they can get two deer, they can actually eat themselves. Harry has to wonder how much weight he’s lost, he’s never not cold anymore even when he sits in front of a fire and he gets tired a lot more easily than normal.

Baiting deer was illegal before the world ended, but back then hunting wasn’t a matter of life and death like it is now. Small piles of dried apple slices… Hawk replenishes the bait almost every day, but each time it actually works they have to change locations to try and keep all the deer in the area from catching on. They walk out to their current spot and climb into a tree blind, and then they sit and wait in the cold with their rifles, hoping the noise of their gas masks hissing isn’t loud enough to scare away any animals.

Somewhere in a different woodsy area, far away from here, Harry knows that Ed and James are out on the trap lines that they and Hawk worked to get set up - small game like rabbits and foxes, not enough to feed more than a couple people per animal but sufficient to ward off a wasting death from starvation and give nutrients to sick and injured people. That’s really it, they have twenty radiation victims who need looking after, and it’s a black hole for resources. Harry was asked by at least a dozen people if it wouldn’t be more merciful to euthanize those patients.

His reply is always the same: “Would you’ve euthanized me, too?” Because he used to be one of those patients. He recovered. Those twenty patients can recover just like he did. He wants them to be well again.

What Harry _doesn’t_ want is to be in charge. He splits duties with Hawk, but nobody asks Hawk for help, for advice. Nobody asks Hawk “what now?” when something happens. In fact it’s Hawk who comes to Harry and asks “what now?” So Harry gets left with these choices, he chooses who goes to bed hungry every night, he chooses whether it’s worth the effort to save the life of a sick person.

The first one he always picks to starve and go without is himself, and after that he asks people: can you do this tonight? Tomorrow, I promise you’ll get fed… and so far he hasn’t broken that promise. He also falls asleep with an empty stomach every night, and it’s that much harder to wake up the next morning and get to work. But it has to be him. He can go out and hunt for himself. He could eat a coyote if he really had to. He has done that, actually, just last week. Because the pains in his gut were too much to take anymore. So he shot a coyote and did the most minimal amount of cooking to make it safe and burned his mouth and his fingertips eating it fresh off the fire in his living room.

Now, here he is again, on another hunting trip to feed other people. Harry just wants winter to end, because maybe once it’s warm out, he’ll be allowed to eat again.

* * *

“Okay… we’re going to get cooked,” Albert says as he pulls a strap on Dale’s backpack to tighten it. “We’re going to get cooked, and we’re going to get sick. How quickly and badly we get sick once we’re out of DC will tell me if we’ll live after or not. We need to get out of here as fast as possible, as far from the city as we can. The level outside according to the big Geiger counter still says it’s radioactive enough to give us a lethal dose in less than four hours. I’ll walk in front with the survey meter. Coop, you cover us. Everyone else, try to stay down and quiet.”

Dale gives his M-16 a final cursory check and takes a deep breath through his respirator. He is now responsible for the life and safety of five civilians in addition to Albert and himself - the plan is for his colleague to lead them out of the ruins, and once the seven of them are clear of DC they’re headed their separate ways. Dale was insistent yesterday when speaking with Albert about this: they’re going to Washington state, to Twin Peaks. From the early reports, it’s reasonable to assume that area will be significantly more habitable than anywhere else. And Albert, surprisingly, agreed.

Each of them is equipped with US Army MOPP gear and are wearing fatigues and combat boots underneath, largely because these articles of clothing are not only more durable but also clean from the storage. Over top are hard-plate ballistic vests which are capable of stopping rifle bullets, and which will also help cut down on the amount of radioactivity that’s sure to penetrate their bodies. In their backpacks are the last of the MREs (two per person), rolled up blankets, plastic canteens of water, flashlights, batteries. Albert has a first aid kit in his and Dale is weighed with ammunition for his assault rifle.

The inner door of the blast shelter is opened and Albert leads the way up the stairs. Dale has unease creeping through his body - he feels pulled towards Twin Peaks, towards Harry, but escaping DC may be enough to kill them by itself. He works to center himself and find inner calm. Albert has a detector, they’ll be able to avoid the worst hot-spots.

As they approach the exit, the survey meter begins to crackle horribly. Dale becomes concerned when Albert makes a disgruntled noise and sets it to the upper capacity for measurement. It takes effort to open the outer door, and Dale emerges first with his rifle shouldered.

He’s fully unprepared for the sight that awaits him. The landscape is unrecognizable, the skyline has been essentially flattened aside from the odd stubborn shell of a building here or there. The sky is overcast, snowflakes lazily drift down - but the snow is gray, still mixed with ash and fallout three months later. There isn’t enough snow or ash to cover the debris, it’s barely more than a dusting; the concussion of the blast has smashed apart structures, but the heat flashes from multiple impacts were apparently not close by enough to fully obliterate the human remains. Skeletons are strewn everywhere, sometimes stacked, like an overabundance of gristly Halloween decorations. Dale almost throws up inside his mask just at this visual.

They’re moving after that. Albert walks at the front, bright yellow Geiger counter held out ahead of him. The immediate difficulty lies in that, even with the horrific remodeling that’s been done to the city, they’re still forced to follow streets - picking through the ruins of structures in order to cut across in a straight line would be an excellent way to get injured or killed in short order. The streets, meanwhile, are clogged and roadblocked by car shells and debris from toppled buildings. They need to hurry and leave this area but hurrying is effectively impossible to do. Albert was right - they’re going to get cooked.

Dale glances around, maintains vigilance - there’s a possibility of looters, of former military. It’s slim, but it exists nonetheless. Each steel plate in his vest is rated for up to six impacts, but he’d still prefer not to be shot by anyone at all, and he needs them intact to help protect his vital organs from the radiation.

A warped sign catches his attention.

“Albert,” he hisses.

“What.”

“The subway.”

Albert stops and looks, then nods. “That’s not a bad idea, hopefully it’s not collapsed.”

“Is it worth a shot?”

“Definitely. Let’s go.”

And they head for the entrance. On immediate inspection, it seems promising. Everything appears intact, and they dig their flashlights out of their packs before plunging into the underground tunnels. Albert’s meter calms some - Dale gets a look at it and the needle isn’t as far down the dial as it was before, despite the staticky crackling still emanating from it. One of their civilians rips a map of the lines down from the wall to carry along and check periodically, and they proceed deeper into the station, flashlight beams cutting lines through the thick blackness.

The further they go, the less radiation is present. Albert manages to put the survey meter on a lower setting and that alone makes this excursion seem like a very good decision to have taken. Dale isn’t informed in the use of Geiger counters and has also never learned exactly what level constitutes cause for concern, so he takes his cues from Albert’s behavior and mannerisms - they’re not in imminent danger down here like they were on the surface.

On the other hand, this can’t be considered “safe” by any means, even with a lowered background reading. The radioactivity is still technically strong enough to make them sick should they linger here for too long, and there are tripping hazards galore. The stillness and the dark are oppressive, even considering the flashlights and the amount of noise they’re making. Dale simply feels that this area is unsafe despite the fact that he’s armed, armored and wearing an NBC suit.

As the minutes pass, Dale begins to have the sensation of drowning. This dark is endless, he can feel the chill even through his suit and the sweater he’s wearing between it and his fatigues. His breath exhausting from his mask is catching and frosting over his eye lenses, distorting the precious line of sight he gains with his flashlight. He experiences a random burst of terror and the sensation of his respirator smothering him.

“Albert.”

“What, Coop?”

“Something’s wrong.”

“What, what is it?”

“I don’t know, something’s wrong,” he says, unable to describe what’s precisely not right with him.

He’s swimming in this blackness, he loses track of which way turns up or down. Vertigo spears through him and he trips over his own boots, crashing down onto the train tracks and shaking as he tries to stand again. There are hands, pulling - is the darkness grabbing onto him, now? No, no, he should calm down, there are other people, they want to help. His breaths saw raggedly through his mask so that he can’t hear anything. It’s too dark, he can’t find where he is or see his own body, how will he ever get out again…?

“Albert,” Dale yells frantically, attempting to orient himself by reconnecting with something familiar.

Another hand, a clicking meter. “I’m here. Come on, start walking. I’ll pull you.”

Dale clumsily hangs his M-16 off his shoulder by the strap and grabs onto Albert so that he won’t get lost again. He’s still weighed by this endless black, this absence of light without boundaries. He’d give anything for just a crack in the ceiling to let the day in, to save him from this. Instead he clings to his irritable colleague, following the sound of the Geiger counter.

It drags indefinitely until Dale can no longer make himself believe they’ll ever climb back up to the light again.

He’s breathing this dark into his lungs through the filters of his respirator, it’s pressing against his body, trying to crush him.

Only Albert can keep moving him, he’d stop and be trapped on his own.

The flashlights are so tiny, they’re powerless against this onslaught, pinpricks to an impervious monster.

Dale’s sense of direction has completely failed him and to describe his mental state as “disoriented” would be a severe understatement.

He may be walking on a wall or ceiling instead of the floor, he can’t be sure if he’s facing forwards.

He almost doesn’t notice when his vision begins to change… the faintest hints of a deep gray instead of black as they round a bend. But gradually, it takes hold - light. An exit, up into the daytime and ashen snowfall. And this pulls Dale back to a fully conscious and aware state. He can breathe again, he’s no longer swimming and dragging. He may finally relinquish his grip on Albert’s forearm and carry his rifle like he was before.

The Geiger counter becomes much more interested in the environment again, which is the trade-off for approaching a visible world. Dale is embarrassed at his reaction… he didn’t used to be afraid of the dark like that, it leaves him to wonder what changed, what could’ve caused him to behave this way.

Ascending to the surface, Dale notes that they’ve actually covered quite a bit of ground - if his estimates are correct, they’re approximately two and a half miles from the edge of the city. Hopefully the radioactivity will decrease soon… the area was very literally bombarded, but the concentration of impacts should be lower as they escape to the west and therefore present less of a danger.

The daylight is beginning to fade as they continue their march across this dangerous ground. Dale is thirsty and he has a headache, but curiously he also discovers a complete lack of appetite on his part. That concerns him and he makes a mental note to ask Albert if this is a symptom of radiation poisoning. His headache ticks up slightly and he works to find something distracting. Harry. Think of Harry. Dale hasn’t seen Harry in quite some time, but they’ll meet again someday soon.

 _When I see Harry again, I’m going to tell him I love him,_ Dale decides, almost surprising himself with the thought. Until now he’s been hesitant at best to use the word “love” to describe his attraction, preferring to think of it as more of a harmless crush instead. But his priorities are rapidly changing, seeing the world in its current state. He shouldn’t continue to lie to himself by claiming that what he feels is anything less than love. He loves Harry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings:
> 
> 1\. Depiction of minor starvation.  
> 2\. Descriptions of human remains.  
> 3\. Depiction of nictofobia and a resulting panic attack.


	4. January 1991: On Being Incapacitated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings in endnotes.

“I’m going to find a stack of donuts for you,” Dale says. “And then we’ll go sit on the roof of the station.”

“Okay,” Harry grins. “But there could be ants up there…”

“Don’t worry about that, Harry. Are you aware that the beds here are terrible?”

“Terrible…” Harry mumbles, and then his head clears again and he realizes where he actually is.

Dale’s not here. He’s very, very sick. The blanket is too hot and heavy but if he takes it off he’ll turn to a popsicle. God, he could die… he’ll burn up from the fever or become septic, those are his two choices, thanks to a fucking bear trap. Maybe he’ll lose his leg…

“Harry.” Hawk blurrily materializes over him. “Are you awake?”

“Yeah… I think so…” Harry blinks and swallows thickly. “How’s it look from over there?”

“Will said your fever’s down a little bit, actually. Don’t worry, Har, we’ll keep feeding you and make sure you’re warm and you’ll get better soon.”

“Maybe.” Harry closes his eyes. “When did we run outta antibiotics, anyway?”

“Last month.”

“Right. Uh. Has Coop showed up yet?”

“No, not yet, we’re keeping an eye out though.”

“I keep dreaming that he’s here,” Harry confesses. “I mean, even before the infection… I keep dreaming about him.”

“You really miss him that much, huh?”

“Guess so.”

They stop talking about Dale and Hawk gets him to sit up, then sets a bowl of rabbit stew in his lap. Harry forces himself to eat it - he likes rabbit stew, but he’s just not hungry. He needs the calories, though, and the nutrients. It’d be pretty embarrassing to survive nuclear fallout and a chemical attack just to be brought down by some damn infection in his leg. Harry wants to live, so he has to eat. He also gets a cup of the cider that got pressed from his apples, which will give him some vitamin C and hopefully help beat this thing back.

Harry lies down again after he’s done with his lunch and lets Dale tuck him in under the blankets. “Don’t you need a nap, too?”

“No, I’m fine. Aren’t you tired of the snow, Harry? It’s impossible to find any clues when the weather is bad like this.”

“Yeah… but aren’t you tired, Coop?”

“If I need to rest I can lie down in the kitchen. Although, there is an owl guarding the fridge. I’d like to have a snack, but it frightens me.”

“Whack it with a broom,” Harry suggests, and then realizes he said that out loud, and he’s not in bed at home, he’s in conference room two with a dangerously high fever that keeps making him have these waking dreams of his friend.

And it’s so weird. The conversations he has with a person who’s not even here are almost reasonable unless he thinks about them too hard. Harry’s sick of this infection and these hallucinations, and he’s sick of thinking he’s somewhere else. And he really, really misses Dale, because Dale would come cheer him up right now.

* * *

It’s absolutely draining to lift the stock of his rifle and smash the window with it - Dale needs to lie down and sleep for the next year to regain the energy he lost through this one simple action. He watches Albert reach carefully through to unlock the door and they both stagger inside the house to rest.

As soon as the mask comes off, Dale throws up for the fifth time today. His body hurts where the steel plates of his ballistic vest have been thumping against him, his nose is bleeding again, his feet are so sore from walking that he could almost be talked into amputating them right here with a rusted hacksaw. The radioactivity is not a detectable amount, at least, which means their suits can come off as well as their combat boots. Dale’s feet swell up horribly the moment he does this, drawing a groan of pain.

“Here.” Albert pulls out his nearly depleted first aid kit and procures a packet of Tylenol. “Drink plenty of water with these.”

He does as instructed and then lies down on a battered couch. Albert sits against a wall, equally exhausted and suffering an identical malaise from the lingering effects of heavy radiation exposure. Dale stops looking at Albert, throwing an arm over his face and attempting to block out the unfortunate state of his physical health in order to entertain more pleasant thoughts. And as always, he daydreams of Harry, of being in Twin Peaks.

How will it go when Dale gets there? Well, he’ll find Harry, first of all. Harry will be in good health, happy to see him - overjoyed, even. They’ll possibly sit down to eat, and swap war stories from their lives for awhile. Dale will find a way to tactfully make his love confession, which will draw a similar statement from Harry. Dale will kiss him, then. A long, passionate kiss to satisfy the longing he’s put up with for at least nine months now. He suspects that Harry will be a very good kisser. They’ll snuggle up in bed that night when they go to sleep. And maybe the next morning, Harry will know some location, a nice clearing out in the woods which isn’t contaminated so they can visit it without protective gear. They’ll sit in the grass together and watch the sky and express regret that it took until now for them to become romantically involved. Then Harry will kiss him again, and perhaps they’ll make love for the first time in the sun…

Dale sighs mournfully as he returns to the grim reality of his current state of being. He’s extremely ill from acute radiation syndrome and is slow to recover owing to the long march they continue each day and that he averages one and a half meals per twenty four hour stretch. It’s painfully obvious that he should be in the intensive care unit of a hospital, not attempting to walk across the entire country on his bruised, aching feet.

“Albert.”

“Hm.”

“I miss Harry.”

“Yeah, I know. I miss food that doesn’t come out of a can or a plastic wrapper but you don’t see me bitching and moaning about it.”

“I dreamed about him last night… he was injured and in pain. It was frightening and I’m concerned.”

“Don’t start with the dream lunacy again, Cooper. You know I hate it when you get all prophetic and shit,” Albert groans.

“I don’t control how my mind functions,” he points out.

“That doesn’t mean you have to talk about it so much.”

Dale rolls onto his side and wipes his nose, which is bleeding again. (Although, perhaps it never stopped bleeding in the first place.) “Do you have to do my wound dressings?”

“No, we’re about to run out of bandages and they looked fine yesterday. We’ll do those tomorrow morning before we leave.”

“Alright.”

Albert twists over and rummages his backpack, producing two cans. “Okay… pears and soup.”

“What kind of soup?”

“Beef barley.”

They eat it cold, passing the cans back and forth to take turns having bites. Albert lets Dale drink the pear juice that’s left in the can at the end and they search for a bedroom in the house to sleep in. Dale doesn’t mind huddling together with his colleague to ward off the cold - Albert has a notoriously difficult time feeling romantic or sexual attraction to people and Dale knows he’s not interested in him, but by now it’s also very obvious that in a purely platonic manner Albert does have something of a soft spot for Dale in his own passive-aggressive and snarky way. So they curl themselves up into balls under dusty blankets, sharing body heat and doing their absolute best to keep down the food they just had.

Dale can’t help wishing, of course, that he was cuddling up to Harry instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings:
> 
> 1\. Depiction of illness related to an injury.  
> 2\. Depiction of acute radiation syndrome.


	5. March 1991: On Scavenging

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings in endnotes.

“Alright, let’s start’er up,” Harry mutters as Hawk and Ed close the hood and get out of the way.

There’s no way to charge a battery, but the gas farm is on a road with an incline, so Harry wrenches the thing into neutral and then fights against the lack of power steering to turn the truck as Hawk, Ed and Andy push it forward from behind. His heart is pounding, and not just from the effort - the tiny bit of gasoline they still had has gone bad, so if they can’t get this damn thing running then they’re gonna have a hell of a time finding new places to loot supplies from. Harry needs this truck to work, and so does everyone else in town.

It takes more than one attempt - the fifth time he tries to turn the engine, it sputters a little, and on the sixth it finally lives with a disgruntled roar. Harry can’t help the huge grin that breaks onto his face when he feels the diesel engine starting to thrum in front of him and he hits the breaks, shifting into reverse and clumsily backing up the road back to the gas farm. His friends are all smiles, too, and none of them can quite believe they actually got this damn thing working.

It was a team effort to say the least. Ed had to strip parts from several other vehicles to get the engine back in a usable state, Harry and Andy and Hawk scavenged every place nearby looking for vegetable oil to feed the gas tank with, plus actual motor oil to put in the engine. And all their efforts paid off in the end, it’s such a satisfying feeling. This project took almost a month to complete, it’ll be April in a few days. Spring will come, the snow will disappear and they’ll be able to drive out and find supplies again.

Hawk climbs into the cab with him and they take off up the highway; Harry needs to waste a bunch of fuel driving around in order to get the battery charged up.

“Now we just gotta keep finding vegetable oil,” Harry comments.

“Most household kitchens should have it, it’ll just take forever to gather it all up,” Hawk says. “I think we’re doing alright now, though. We can get more done to keep everything up and running around here.”

They head away from town for about fifteen minutes before Harry turns around and drives back. There’s still patches of snow on the road sometimes, and he’s not used to driving in that anymore so it takes a little bit for him to remember how it’s done. Even so, he’s very happy about this; the implications of a pickup truck are huge. Longer and bigger supply runs, better transport for hunting trips, hauling huge amounts of water that can be filtered and used for all the things they need water for (which is a very long list). When their gasoline went bad before they could even use it all up, Harry had to run around stopping a panic from everybody even while wondering himself just what the hell they were supposed to do now. And here, he has the answer.

* * *

Dale dreams.

He dreams of melting snow and walking a trap line. Of rabbit stew for dinner and cold canned spam for breakfast. Of a pair of hands that don’t belong to him, working and cleaning a hunting rifle. Of seeing Hawk and Andy every morning. Of waiting in ambush for a deer. Of driving a truck. He dreams of the things Harry must be seeing every day.

When his eyes open again, there are mixed feelings. Dale’s glad that he can be sure Harry is alive and doing perfectly fine. He’d like to stay in these dreams, hide inside their mundane comfort, instead of rousing back into the torturous hell that his own life currently represents. Because waking hours mean suffering under a fever, random nosebleeds, an inability to eat solid food, his hair falling out in clumps, periodic spells of uncontrollable vomiting. And until it stops, he and Albert are stuck here, camping out in the basement of a home. Dale is simply too weak and too sick to continue on, and for the past two weeks they’ve sat here, waiting for him to recover.

So he closes his eyes and tries to sleep. Because when he sleeps, he dreams of Harry, and he knows that his distant friend is thriving despite the current state of the world.

“Coop.”

“Yes, Albert?” he mumbles, not looking.

“There’s a hospital about five miles up the road, I’m going to go there and see if I can find some medical supplies to help you. You’ll probably be by yourself for about a day and a half, so I’m going to leave some things nearby. Here.” The sound of a crinkling wrapper prompts him to open his eyes, and he finds a Hershey’s bar being peeled open. Albert breaks off a single section. “Don’t chew it, just let it melt on your tongue, it’ll give you some calories and fat.”

“Alright.” Dale accepts the small piece of chocolate and puts it in his mouth, then talks around it. “Will you be safe travelling and looting by yourself?”

“No,” Albert admits, “but you might die if I don’t, so there isn’t much choice.”

“No, I suppose there isn’t…” Dale relaxes and closes his eyes again. “I’ll sleep some more.”

“Go ahead. I’ll be back by tomorrow afternoon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings:
> 
> 1\. Depiction of acute radiation syndrome.


	6. April 1991: On Difficult Travels

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings in endnotes.

It’s like a bear attack… if bears had guns.

Harry lies absolutely still and plays dead. A boot kicks him in the side and he does nothing. He thinks maybe the adrenaline is keeping the pain at bay, he _knows_ that bullet went right through his arm but he can barely feel it. And the rain, then falling over and rolling down the bank, both those things mean he’s smeared with mud and it’ll be impossible for them to see exactly where he’s bleeding from.

There wasn’t any warning. Two soldiers (well, ex-soldiers, the army doesn’t exist anymore after all). Harry almost didn’t see them at all out here in the woods. And they fucking shot him for no reason. Hopefully, they’ll buy it, they’ll think he’s been taken out. He doesn’t move at all. Stay limp, don’t breathe. Wait for them to go away.

Hands. They rummage his backpack, jostling him as they steal his salvage. He waits, only taking tiny breaths when they’re moving him so that they won’t see him doing it. His lungs scream for air under his chest but if he breathes he’ll die. The rain soaks into his clothes through the holes torn in his rubber shell. The hands let go of him. Boots clomp away through the wet forest.

Harry still doesn’t move for a long time, waiting until he’s sure they’re gone and then waiting some more. His pack has been emptied and by now he’s in debilitating pain, his only concern is finding his way back to the diesel truck and going home. The one upside is that he has supplies in the crate that’s been bolted to the bottom of the truck, so once he makes it there he can tend to his hurt arm and not have to wait until he gets into town.

The truck is right where he left it, unlooted. Harry gets in the cab with his things and then strips off his jacket, gloves, flannel, t-shirt. He checks the Geiger counter first before also ditching his gas mask so that he can see better. First he pours all his drinking water through the hole in his bicep to flush it (which hurts) and then dumps half a bottle of whiskey into it for disinfection (which hurts even more). He doesn’t have bandages, though, which means he gets to drive back bleeding all over himself… it slows down eventually at least, so he’s pretty sure the bullet didn’t hit an artery or something.

Returning to Twin Peaks hurt and with less salvage than usual makes him feel disappointed in himself, even though he knows it isn’t his fault. It doesn’t improve his mood any that when he goes to see Doc Hayward there’s first of all more alcohol poured through the gaping hole in his arm and then he gets sewn back up without any anesthetic because their supplies are too low. So he sits there, digging his teeth into a rolled up washcloth and feeling every millimeter of suture thread that gets pulled through his flesh.

* * *

“Albert.”

“We’re almost there,” Albert grunts.

“ _Albert._ ”

“Coop, enough.”

“Albert, I-”

“No. I’m not playing the ‘are we there yet’ game with you.”

Well, Dale tried. Unable to voice his warning, he promptly drops his rifle and rips off his mask so that he can vomit uncontrollably for several minutes. His stomach is at least healing, apparently, because there’s less blood in it than usual. Drinking radioactive water will apparently cause burns to the digestive tract, and even with some of his other symptoms subsiding enough for them to begin travelling again he’s in no way out of the woods yet.

Incredibly, this is Albert’s response: “Why didn’t you say something?”

“You kept interrupting me!” Dale shouts, unable to contain his exasperation and general misery.

He rinses his mouth out with water and replaces his respirator, and after retrieving his rifle begins walking again. It’s starting to occur to him that he may not fully recover, or that Albert is only keeping him mobile long enough to reach Twin Peaks. He may finally die once he’s arrived and seen Harry again. Dale doesn’t want to lie down and die but the recurring instances of acute radiation syndrome, as Albert calls it, are wearing on him horribly and he doesn’t imagine he’ll be able to fight through it much longer. He needs nutritious food, adequate sleep, a warm bed to recover in. None of those things are available to him. And until they are, he isn’t going to improve, or at least not quickly.

In order to be able to keep moving at all, given both of their states of malnutrition, they’d been forced to leave behind their ballistic vests because the weight was simply too much - cutting the forty extra pounds meant freedom to get up and leave. Dale isn’t as burdened as Albert because Albert’s carrying the food and medical supplies, but he does still have containers of drinking water as well as the ammo for his assault rifle.

For now, the entirety of his strength to continue planting one foot in front of the other is imagining Harry. He wants to make it back to Harry, which should’ve happened anyway had the world not decided to end. Dale desires to see Harry strongly enough to override his malaise and exhaustion, at least for now.

They stagger into a town and hole up in the stock room of a department store. Albert puts him on an IV and injects several things into it, and meanwhile Dale makes his best effort to choke down a small can of corned beef spread. He gags multiple times but manages not to vomit somehow, reminding himself over and over that he desperately needs the protein and vitamins. When the IV bag has drained, Albert pulls the line out of his arm and also eats - a sleeve of stale Ritz crackers and a tin of sardines. The smell of those also tries as hard as it can to make Dale sick, but he refuses its strong invitation for him to lose his dinner and thinks of other, more pleasant things. And as always, his thoughts take him to Harry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings:
> 
> 1\. Depiction of gunshot wounds.  
> 2\. Depiction of acute radiation syndrome.


	7. June 1991: On Burying The Dead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I won't be offended or surprised if a bunch of you stop reading after this chapter tbh.
> 
> Trigger warnings in endnotes.

A frantic thumping noise drags Harry out of his dreamless slumber - he opens his eyes and the sun isn’t even quite up yet, there’s no reason for anyone to be bothering him right now unless it’s an emergency. That gets him to throw himself out of bed, yanking on a pair of jeans over his boxer briefs but not even bothering to button or zip them before hurry-stumbling to the door of his house.

“What is it?” he demands when he opens up and finds Hawk.

“Doc Hayward just died.”

Every drop of blood in Harry’s body freezes when he hears that. His first instinct is to panic - now what the hell will they do for injuries? Or for the constant influx of radiation poisoning cases? What if someone gets pregnant? What about the flu? What if a bunch of people get food poisoning? What if someone needs surgery?

Harry tries to keep a grip on logic, or really just the ability to think coherently at all. He shakes his head several times to try and clear it, but it doesn’t really work that well.

“Uh. Okay. We’ll. We’ll have to bury him, I guess.”

Harry has no idea what to do about this.

He goes back to his bedroom and gets dressed for real, then walks into town with Hawk and finds almost everybody gathered near the station, obviously waiting for him. They want Harry to have some solution for them, to put a band-aid on this and make it better like he has so many times before, and he’s already on the verge of a mental breakdown knowing that because he’s got nothing. Honest to god, he has no clue how to handle this one. Why does he have to be in charge? Don’t they know that half the time he’s just making shit up as he goes?

Harry shrugs at them a little bit - never a great start. He’s at a complete loss. “So. What happened, does anybody know?”

There’s murmuring. Nobody can come up with an explanation, except maybe old age and stress. He was almost sixty, after all, and in this situation… the only thing everybody can agree on is that he wasn’t ill with anything contagious, because there are only two sick people right now and they’ve both got radiation poisoning after eating some contaminated meat.

So now Harry’s the impromptu funeral director, because of course it has to be him. They’ve had deaths before, but this is different. There are no other doctors still in Twin Peaks, radiation exposure and every kind of injury under the sun run rampant at any given time. And he’s left to deal with this, because nobody else is interested in helping untangle such a huge mess except maybe Hawk. And even Hawk will defer to him like always.

A grave has to get dug. Harry decides to start with that, it’s obviously necessary and very practical. Everyone who doesn’t have a critically essential task to work on today lines up and takes a turn - ten minutes of digging, get to the back of the line for another turn, until the hole is about four feet deep. Harry participates in this too, of course. He uses it as an excuse to procrastinate on coming up with answers when people start asking him how they’ll manage without a doctor. The truth is he just doesn’t know. He has no idea how they’ll cope with this one.

The burial happens in the afternoon. Everyone stands around quietly, a few people share things. Harry ends up next to Donna and mimics her numbed silence. He doesn’t know what he should say, nothing he could ever come up with will do this tragedy justice, and so he doesn’t say a damn thing. Every person takes a turn to drop a handful of dirt into the grave, and once that’s happened Harry does all the re-shoveling himself, tossing the pile back into the hole and refusing to let anyone help him. Because he has no fucking idea what else he should do about this.

All of these people, the hundred and some-odd human beings whose lives he’s involuntarily in charge of, gather up to eat dinner together, sitting in the street where Sparkwood and 21 intersect. Harry doesn’t join them. He goes home, where there isn’t anybody to look at him with a big sad question mark in their eyes, and for almost half an hour he just sits on his porch and sobs. He doesn’t know how to fix this. There is no fixing this. What the fuck are they supposed to do now? And how is he supposed to answer anyone when they start asking him that question?

Why, why, _why_ does he have to be the one in charge?

* * *

Dale groans as he wriggles his feet out of his combat boots - he’s sore and covered in blisters, and Albert’s away in search of medical supplies so he may as well make himself comfortable because at minimum that’s a task which will take several hours. He also peels away his socks and sheds his fatigue tunic, sighing as the sheen of sweat coating his torso becomes exposed to the air and instantly cools. It’s only now that his hair is growing back following his bouts of radiation poisoning, and that feels very inopportune to Dale, because it certainly doesn’t help with the sweat.

He takes a long sip of water and then opens a can of pineapple chunks while leaning back to rest against a car, which is also providing him shade at the moment. He doesn’t enjoy sitting and waiting on a highway, but Albert was adamant about checking a nearby clinic for supplies, so he has little choice.

A noise catches him as he’s taking a bite, and he pauses. “Albert?”

No reply. Suspicious, Dale slowly sets aside the can while chewing the piece already in his mouth. He’s concerned that there may be a hostile animal stalking him, and regrets taking off his boots. Paying close attention to his hearing, Dale starts to reach for his M-16. A thump behind him - something hitting the trunk of the car - and then a sharp object, a weight, landing on him and raking down his left ear before catching and shredding across his collarbone.

Unable to stop a yelp that’s more from the shock than the pain, Dale bucks this weight away from him and discovers: long tangled hair, dirty face, grimy pink t-shirt, jeans with both knees ripped out, sneakers that are falling apart. The girl lunges for him again but he catches her this time, wrenching the kitchen knife out of her small fist and then trapping her between his arms and his chest. She gives an unnatural shriek and attempts to struggle away from him, but he holds fast, keeping her there despite her now whacking away at him with her bare hands.

“Stop that, _stop,_ ” Dale barks, then readjusts so it’s more like a hug than a pinning tactic. She feels extremely underweight beneath his arms and the fight comes out of her quickly. “Shhhh…”

Dale looks at her carefully, and determines that she’s watching the can of pineapple… she wants his food. She’s starving. He shifts position a second time, settling back against the car again with her in his lap before reaching for the can. Dale places it in her grasp and she immediately sticks a filthy hand in to start scooping pieces into her mouth, barely stopping to chew.

“Slow down, don’t choke.” He realizes that he’s bleeding and feels his ear - it doesn’t hurt until he touches it, which is irritating. “Will you tell me your name?”

She stops for about two seconds. “Amanda.” And then goes back to shoveling pineapple down her throat.

“Amanda… I wish you’d asked nicely instead of attacking me with a knife. I still would’ve shared.”

She shakes her head at him. “You’re dumb. People don’t share food.”

Dale immediately begins to feel conflicted. He can’t simply allow a child to wander around alone in this environment because that would be cruel, but it’s unrealistic to expect that he can drag her across the rest of the country with him on his march to Twin Peaks.

“Amanda, where are your family?”

“Dead.” She says it so casually. “There’s no food here.”

“I see…” Dale frowns. “Are you thirsty? I have water.”

“Yeah.”

He gives her a canteen and then procures a fresh can of food for himself, seeing how she interrupted his lunch. This one is peaches, which he doesn’t enjoy as much, but it’ll nourish him either way. His brain is still turning over the dilemma of this girl - as far as he can tell, his best option would be to bring her with them until they find an inhabited area and then deposit her with other people.

Amanda climbs out of his lap and lies down with her head on his backpack. Dale watches her fall asleep and quietly wonders how a child approximately eight or nine years old has survived this far without people to look after her. It’s also concerning to him that her first instinct was to attack him for food - him, an adult male who’s approximately three and a half times her weight and almost twice her height. Dale touches his ear and then his clavicle - both are sticky and sore, but no longer bleed. He sighs softly to himself and wonders how many other children are wandering alone without food like she has been.

Inevitably, his musings give way to daydreams of Harry. His favorite as always is a clean field with no radiation, where they picnic and confess their love for each other which leads to passionate unprotected sex in the soft grass. In this unlikely fantasy of his, Harry for an unspecified reason is already in possession of a container of lubricant. But as lovely as these thoughts are, they bleed into more anxious ideas - Dale’s not sure how, considering the immense distance that still separates them, but he can faintly sense that something is very wrong in Harry’s life at the moment. What that something might be is a complete mystery, but it only serves to make him even more desperate to return to Twin Peaks. He’s concerned about what state Harry will be in when they see each other again.

A hiss: “Coop? You there?”

He glances around, snapping back into the current moment. “Yes, Albert, I’m behind the car.” Dale frowns as Albert appears. “You’re back much sooner than I was expecting.”

“Yeah… ever wonder what happens to a burning building when there’s no fire brigades to put it out anymore?”

“Yes, I see.”

“Get dressed, we’re going… who’s that?”

“Amanda. She attacked me with a knife over a can of pineapple.”

“Which I’m sure you then proceeded to waste on her,” Albert snipes.

“She’s a child, what was I supposed to do?”

Albert doesn’t answer immediately, and instead kneels to study the girl. “Are you aware that she’s been starving for weeks on end?”

“I believe she mentioned something to that effect, yes.”

“Okay. Because…” Albert reaches out and takes her pulse with his fingertips. “You’re not supposed to give solid food to starving people.” He shakes his head. “If it’s any consolation, she would’ve almost certainly died soon anyway.”

Dale suddenly and inexplicably fails to recall how to breathe. “Albert, what are you saying?” he chokes out.

“…I’m sorry, Coop. But. It’s not really your fault, you didn’t know.”

A child has just died on his watch, and through his actions. Dale has killed people before, but it was always on purpose and deserved. The fact that this was an accident somehow makes it much, much worse. He wants to ask if there’s anything Albert can do to remedy the situation, but he already knows the answer is _no._ And so no course of action is left to him besides curling himself into a ball and starting to cry with his face pressed against his knees.

Albert at some point notices the minor wound in his ear, but Dale refuses to allow it to be tended to until Amanda has been buried. Given that he isn’t in possession of a shovel and also that the idea of animals eating her doesn’t sit well with him, he wraps her up in the blanket from his backpack and puts her in the trunk of a car. Using the kitchen knife she attacked him with, he scratches her name into the paint. Only then does he sit again, allowing Albert to clean the cuts and tape gauze over them. As this takes place, he resumes his fit of guilty tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings:
> 
> 1\. Depiction of chronic extreme stress causing a mental breakdown.  
> 2\. Depiction of limited violence.  
> 3\. Depiction of the accidental death of a child.


	8. August 1991: On Hope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings in endnotes.

Harry pops a radish into his mouth and chomps down on it - the loud _crunch_ that fills his head is almost as satisfying as the strong flavor on his tongue. Cucumbers, radishes, tomatoes… the vegetables they have until they can start digging up the potatoes in a couple weeks. Harry loves radishes, and after he practically starved himself last winter the remaining population of the town decided to thank him by giving him an entire jar of the little round vegetables each time they get harvested.

He’s enjoying this delicious treat while sitting on his porch and watching the stars come out over the trees. Next month will be some of the potatoes, a continuing line of tomatoes too for awhile. They can start hunting deer again. His apple trees will get picked clean for all kinds of things, cider and applesauce and dried slices for snacks. And for a short time, some of them will just get eaten fresh by people. The ones that are the least good for making into food will also be dried, but into bait that they’ll use over the winter to lure deer.

Harry bites down on another radish. He hopes Dale gets here soon, he’s sick of having to ask random people he runs into out on scavenging trips if they’ve seen his friend and also he wants them to share fresh radishes and fresh apples and a nice venison steak.

The frogs and the crickets are loud right now. He wonders if the frogs are radioactive… it’s not the first time he’s thought about that. Maybe there are frogs hopping around in the woods with twelve legs and three eyes. He hasn’t actually seen any like that, but hey, you never know. Harry grins imagining Dale running around out in the forest with him, marveling at mutant frogs with that typical boyish curiosity.

He can hear boots at the end of his drive - it’s Hawk, of course. Nobody else ever comes to his house to find him, it’s a twenty minute walk up the highway.

“Oh, no,” Harry groans when his friend is in earshot.

“Relax, Har, nothing’s going on.”

“Oh. Well that’s a nice surprise. What’s up?”

“Not much, figured you wouldn’t mind the company.”

“Sure, have a seat.” Harry jerks his thumb at the open jar. “Want some?”

“No, you go ahead and enjoy those.” Hawk settles in a nearby chair and pulls some fish jerky out of his pocket, unwrapping the paper from around it with almost comically loud crinkling noises. “Any signs of Coop today?”

“Nah, nothing yet. Course he’s probably walking, right? So it might take a couple more weeks before he gets up here.”

Even with his eyes on the purple-black night overhead, Harry can sense Hawk starting to look at him funny just because they’ve known each other way too long.

“Harry… what’re you gonna do if he doesn’t come back?”

Harry whips his head around to give Hawk the ugliest glare he can come up with. “Don’t ever say that to me again.”

“I think you should just… try to keep your expectations realistic. That’s all. He might not come back. Be ready in case he doesn’t.”

“Hawk-”

“I know you really miss him.”

“I-”

“But it’s been almost a year, now. I’m not saying he’s… gone altogether, but maybe he’s not in a position where he can get here.”

“He’ll come back,” Harry insists, unbelievably angry now. “I know he will. We’re not talking about this anymore.”

Hawk sighs and takes a bite of jerky. “That’s not really the only thing holding you together these days, is it?”

“What?”

“Tell me there’s something else you’re looking forward to or hoping for, anything that gets you outta bed in the morning besides just wanting to be the first to see him if he shows up. That’s not healthy.”

Harry snorts. “Who gives a shit? Is _anything_ we do healthy? That trout you’re eating right now is full’a plutonium. You and me and Andy are out all the time running through hot-spots just for a roll of duct tape. Don’t fucking talk to me about ‘healthy.’ Not anymore.” He shakes his head and eats another radish. “And why would it matter anyway? Because I _do_ get outta bed every day, and I run off my damn legs plugging leaks whenever I’m not wrapped up in chores or digging through radioactive trash. How about you try being the one everyone comes to looking for answers to problems you can’t fix… just for one _week,_ Hawk. And you’ll start hoping for things you have no control over, too. Four weeks and that’s the only thing you think about to make yourself feel better. Eight weeks, you start having mental breakdowns every few days, and that one thing that you’re not even in charge of is all you have left to get you up every morning. So don’t you dare take this away from me. Coop’s coming back.”

A long silence. And then, quietly: “Okay, Har. Coop’s coming back.”

* * *

“Coop. Coop. Get up.”

Dale has lost track of which direction is up now that he’s finally fallen over. He closes his eyes under his respirator and lies still. His muscles have been severely cramping for the past hour and by now the amount of sweat inside his MOPP suit is making him feel like a boiled lobster. His head hurts, his stomach turns, he sucks breaths through the filters of his mask. Why can’t the sun go away for a few minutes?

“Cooper, _get up._ ” Albert kicks him and he groans. “We need to get out of this area as soon as possible so you can take off your suit, you need water.”

“Albert…” Dale whines, crawling dizzily forward about two feet before collapsing again. “I’m too hot…”

“I know you are, I am too and I can’t carry you. You _have_ to get up so we can get out of here.”

His fatigues are pasted to his skin and soaked through, and so the suit became plastered to his clothes due to the sweat saturation. Dale crawls in starts and stops for a few minutes, but he’s weak. He absolutely must not remove his mask or suit, there were reports of nerve agents in this region and there’s no way to know if the dust is contaminated and may incapacitate them. That’s the only thing he can be sure of at the moment, that his MOPP gear has to remain on his body.

But… he also thinks… perhaps he should lie down and die. It would be much, much easier than struggling through in this heat. His own body is too much of a burden for him to move anymore. Dale is aware that it isn’t the first time he’s had this idea, either. And he no longer understands why he didn’t take those other opportunities before.

“Albert.”

“Coop, stand up.”

“Albert…”

“What?”

“I don’t recall… why should I stay alive?”

Albert kicks him a second time. “Because otherwise you can’t see your boyfriend ever again! Now get your ass up off the road!”

Dale realizes - Albert is scared. Albert is very scared that he won’t get up. He imagines Harry… what if it was Harry here and not Albert? Well… Harry wouldn’t yell. He’d probably beg, because he’s kind and wouldn’t think to scream at someone who’s in trouble. He’d pick Dale up and carry him to safety, maybe… Dale grins under his mask. He’d like to be carried around by Harry.

But Harry’s not here.

And Albert is right.

If Dale ever wants to see Harry again, he’ll have to resign himself to the awful reality of standing and continuing to walk.

Dale pulls himself up by more or less using Albert as a ladder, and stumbles forward on trembling legs. Albert holds onto him - they both shake terribly, sweating themselves to dehydration under their MOPP gear. Dale’s muscles are cramping and stinging lines of moisture run from his forehead into his eyes, distorting his vision. He gasps for breath through the respirator. If only it would rain…

At some point he understands that he’s mumbling “I wish it would rain” over and over again. Albert stops them both long enough to carefully pour some of their dwindling water supply over his head and chest. The breeze catches these wet spots and cools his suit, which comes through his saturated fatigue tunic to give him some relief. It’s only temporary, of course; the water will evaporate completely within the next five minutes. But for now, it’s enough to help him.

Approximately a mile and a half more of this staggering hell takes place until they can finally stop in the trailer of an eighteen-wheeler. Dale drops his backpack and rifle, not caring where they end up, and promptly tears the MOPP gear from his body. Once that’s done, he yanks off his boots and strips down to his boxers, and then sits against the wall of the trailer. He isn’t getting up for anything.

With some difficulty, Albert places an IV - all his veins are constricted from the fluid loss. Dale closes his eyes and just breathes while listening to the saline bag getting duct taped to the wall over his head.

“Albert.”

“What?”

“I thought you’re a pacifist.”

“I am, why?”

“Well… you were kicking me earlier. It doesn’t seem particularly peaceful from my perspective.”

“Yeah, because you were going to die if I didn’t do something,” Albert snaps. “Open your mouth.”

He obeys and a thermometer gets shoved under his tongue, and while it measures him Albert does his vitals. The thermometer is removed again following after the blood pressure cuff.

“101,” his friend mutters. “That’s not good, but you don’t have heat stroke, which is the most important thing. Here.” The sound of a can opening, and then it’s placed in his free hand. “Don’t eat any of that yet, just drink the fruit juice. Sip it slowly.”

Dale doesn’t have the physical energy for anything besides tiny sips even if he was interested in disobeying the words of a medical expert, which he’s not. A thought comes to him, forming slowly.

“Is it a bad sign psychologically speaking that Harry is the only reason I’m able to continue?”

“First of all, you’re the one who majored in that in college, not me. Second of all, I don’t care, as long as _something_ can get you to keep going. Third, I don’t think it even matters. And fourth, isn’t that a sign of the times? What the hell else do you have to hope for anymore? For some damn reason, you love that slack-jawed hayseed, and far be it from me to stop you from having any positive emotions these days.”

Dale grins, still not opening his eyes. “Thank you, Albert. That’s nice to hear.”

“If you start crying I’ll kick you again.”

“No, I won’t… but you have no reason to return to Twin Peaks… what helps you keep walking?”

“Keeping your careless ass alive.”

“I’m touched.”

“Don’t let it go to your head, I have nothing better to do.”

Dale doesn’t speak further, but he knows for a fact that that’s not true. Albert cares about him and they have a strong friendship. _When I see Harry again, I’ll tell him to thank Albert for getting me there._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings:
> 
> 1\. Depiction of chronic stress and subtext of psychological trauma.  
> 2\. Depiction of heat injury.


	9. September 1991: On Obstacles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings in endnotes.

Harry counts the bottles and jugs in his kitchen.

“Son of a bitch.”

He still doesn’t have enough.

The area around Spokane will probably be empty of people, because Spokane was first hit by a huge cloud of fallout and then washed with a radioactive downpour less than a week later, so it’s too heavily contaminated to live in. That means it probably won’t be as badly looted as most other places are becoming and maybe Harry can get some good salvage from a couple towns nearby. In order to do that, though, he needs fuel… and this isn’t enough vegetable oil to gas the truck with any guarantee that he’ll make it back again.

Sighing heavily, he eats a jar of crushed tomatoes with garlic for breakfast and then heads to the station. Nobody else is happy this morning either, although that has a lot to do with a tree falling and crushing someone to death yesterday. Everyone’s quiet as they get to work on their chores and Harry tries to avoid every person he sees because he’s really not in a good headspace to deal with collective grief right now.

He has bigger problems. For one thing, he wants to make damn sure they’re better prepared for this winter than they were for the last one so that nobody has to go hungry like they did back then. There was an outbreak of food poisoning after some jars weren’t washed correctly and he’ll have to lecture everyone about that because he’s the only one anybody listens to. Plus, he has his own chores and jobs.

It rained last night, so he goes out back with the Geiger counter to measure the drums. He flicks the knob to the circuit check setting… and nothing happens. Harry frowns and slaps the side of the meter with his palm a few times, but that doesn’t get a result. It must be the battery. So he flips it back to off and heads into the station again to dig up some D-cells. Just finding the damn things is an ordeal by itself, and then when he finally does change the battery it still won’t turn on.

Their Geiger counter has stopped working.

And just like with Doc Hayward a few months ago, Harry doesn’t have a clue how he can fix this one. They have no doctor and now no way to check their food and water for contamination… that’s already a recipe for disaster, even without any of the other million tiny factors which could pop up for no other reason than to make the situation worse. This is the only radiation detector they have, and finding another one to replace it will be nothing short of impossible. They should have five or six, but all the ones in the radiology department of the hospital got stolen during the evacuation, leaving them with just the one from the civil defense office.

Dropping the dead meter onto the counter, Harry goes outside again, but not to the water barrels. Instead he walks off into the woods in no particular direction for about ten minutes until he’s sure he’s far enough away from town that nobody will hear him… then he puts his hands on his head, yanks his own curls and just screams. There’s nothing else he can do.

* * *

“Judging by the map and our current speed,” Dale observes, “we should reach Twin Peaks in five weeks or less.”

“We need food,” Albert grunts. “If we go without for too much longer we’re gonna end up like that little girl on the highway…”

“Oh. Yes, that too.”

They have two cans of spam and a cereal bar left, along with a bag of hard candies they’ve been sucking on periodically for the past few days. They’re moving so slowly that they may as well crawl, and the only factor working in their favor somewhat is the rain - they have plenty of drinking water. If only they had sufficient food, then it would be three weeks instead of five…

Dale does not have the sense that he’s doing anything besides lugging this assault rifle - he’s too tired and malnourished to use it effectively, so it largely still exists in his arms as a psychological deterrent at this point. Besides, it also desperately needs maintenance that he’s simply unable to afford it, owing to a lack of time and energy and materials and tools. He wonders if it would still even fire supposing he pulls the trigger.

As always, while his feet take steps his mind is elsewhere, in Twin Peaks with Harry. The foolish idea of a picnic seems so unrealistic to him by now that he no longer entertains it. Instead, he conjures thoughts of meaningful rest in a soft bed, heavy blankets and strong but gentle arms wrapping him in a bubble of cozy warmth while the rain hits the window. Both of them are healthy and well-fed in this daydream of course, and Dale thinks it’s infinitely more likely that this will be the setting in which Harry makes love with him for the first time. _When I see Harry again, I will refuse to let him sleep anywhere besides the same bed as me._

And how will it be when they first meet again? Dale believes that they’ll make eye contact and there will be huge smiles on both sides, and then a spectacular hug. They’ll spend some amount of time catching up on each other’s lives from the past year. And perhaps once that’s done, Harry will try to keep smiling but he’ll be quiet and nervous, and Dale will carefully draw a confession out of him: _Coop, I’m in love with you._ And Dale will assure him this feeling is in no way one-sided, and they’ll kiss.

And the thought comes like always. _When I see Harry again, I’m going to tell him I love him._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings:
> 
> 1\. Depiction of chronic stress with a subtext of psychological trauma and a related mental breakdown.  
> 2\. Depiction of the beginning stages of starvation.


	10. October 1991: On Reunions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings in endnotes.

It’s all preparations, now.

They need to be ready for winter this time, it’ll probably start snowing in a few weeks, maybe less if they’re really unlucky. They can’t leave so many things up to chance. So Harry and Hawk and Ed have been hunting round the clock for the last six days, getting anything they could find in terms of meat. Now, Hawk is out again scavenging, and Ed is checking the diesel truck over just in case, and Harry is packing venison and turkey in salt because there’s no way they can cook and can all of this fast enough, especially with all the coyote that they want to get used up first.

Tomorrow will be different, though. Not only will it be Harry’s day for scavenging, but he also finally has enough vegetable oil to gas the truck for a trip to Spokane and back. Granted, he won’t be going quite that far down, but still, it’s a good measuring point. And if anybody asks, it’s because he wanted to check someplace he hasn’t already been for baby cold medicine since Wally has a cough.

Harry’s a little concerned about it, though. Without a working Geiger counter, he’ll be risking serious exposure levels, especially around that area. And what if there are still people there despite everything? Or worse - what if he runs into former soldiers and gets shot again? That’s definitely not something he’d like to go through a second time, especially with such a long drive back.

On the other hand… Dale must be getting close by now. If there are people, maybe one of them will have seen his friend, can point him in the right direction. Harry dreamed of Dale again last night, and it was really weird, even by dream standards. He just has this _feeling…_ he knows he’ll see Dale again sometime very soon. It makes him smile to himself as he rubs salt into the chunks of raw meat. Harry also has to wonder if Dale’s actually trying to make contact using those weird psychic powers of his. Admittedly, he kinda likes that idea.

The smell of Lucy chopping up garlic on the counter behind him is making him hungry. When Harry does break for lunch, it’s coyote stew with mushrooms, very gamey but really not that bad because whoever made this batch (probably Norma) did it right.

The issue is that they have so much fucking coyote meat, and not everybody is as indifferent to it as Harry. He knows Donna’s sisters will probably get fed a lot of it because they’re not really in a position to bitch and moan about the food that gets handed out to them, and Ed will probably suck it up and help eat it too. Hawk definitely won’t, but Hawk’s also usually the one out getting this food for them in the first place, so he has special privileges.

While Harry eats, he wanders into his former office and takes a good look at their food stocks. There’s plenty of things besides coyote-based meals; mashed potatoes, tomato soup, duck, venison, steelhead trout, mushroom soup, pickles, vegetable soup, wild raspberry preserves (he doesn’t know how the hell Lucy keeps those from getting stolen)… there are even just jars of meat gravy.

Harry has some water after finishing his stew, and then he gets back to work. Just a few more hours of this, then dinner, then bed… and then he’ll be in Spokane tomorrow.

* * *

“Albert,” Dale hisses when movement catches his eye.

They both pause and look - a tall figure with a large backpack, wearing improvised protective clothing consisting of dirty yellow rain gear and kitchen gloves. The respirator appears to be an industrial type with an ABEK filter. This person is also armed with a scoped hunting rifle, but it’s slung, not carried.

Dale and Albert are spotted. The person’s hands go up, indicating lack of hostility but possibly also some amount of fear. Dale waves them to come over, largely because he plans to beg for food given the opportunity to do so. A hand in a pocket, and then a male voice: “Have you seen this man?” A piece of paper is practically stuffed into Dale’s palm. “I’ve been trying to find him, I figured he might be headed this way. Have you seen him?”

Dale unfolds it, despite the difficulty posed by one of his hands being full of an assault rifle at the moment. He’s fully unprepared to see his own face on the page, a detailed pencil sketch which can only have been drawn by Andy. Dale looks up and peers into the foggy visor of the man’s respirator… kind brown eyes, familiarly-shaped eyebrows, the worry lines are understandably deeper than he remembers them being. Even so, he almost can’t believe it.

“Harry… is that _you?_ ”

Dale drops everything he’s holding and they throw themselves into each other’s arms. Dale clings, almost hanging off of his much stronger friend, who takes his weight easily and doesn’t even seem to notice at first just how weak he is. It’s been longer than he can recall with any accuracy since he felt such sheer, unbridled joy.

Naturally, Albert demands that they leave due to the high ambient radioactivity, and Harry - thank god - leads them to a large, battered pickup truck. Dale sleeps for the entire ride up to Twin Peaks, relieved that he no longer has to move under his own power, and eventually finds himself sitting on a couch that’s past its prime while watching Harry build a nice big fire to warm the food with. (Food! Finally, food! Even if it’s only soup. Dale’s still excited).

A small concern nags him. “Harry…”

“Yeah, Coop.”

“Can you come here for a moment?”

“Sure.”

Mercifully, Albert is taking a nap, and so won’t tease Dale for this - he manages to sit up so that he can reach for Harry and feel that yes, his friend is truly present, this isn’t some hallucination or mirage. Yet, he still feels the need to explain himself to the baffled-looking man standing over him.

“I’m sorry… I’m just making sure I didn’t dream you.”

“No, I’m real,” Harry promises, still obviously confused to some degree.

Worry and hints of sadness cross Harry’s face as he studies Dale, obviously understanding now that this is an extremely dangerous state of malnutrition. Dale can’t bear to see him looking so upset and so hurries to reassure him.

“We’ll be alright.” He reaches for his friend’s hands. “You look good.”

And he does. A fairly large and hideous scar covers most of the lower left part of Harry’s face, beginning just shy of the corner of his mouth and running back all the way to the side of his neck - the remnant of a chemical warfare agent. If Dale had to hazard a guess, he’d say that’s almost definitely not the only such mark on his friend’s body. But it doesn’t deter him in the slightest, even ignoring that his own flesh is spackled liberally with the permanent reminders of radiation burns. Harry is well-fed, and strong, and healthy. Even thirteen months of hardship and injury haven’t dampened the inherent gentleness to his soul.

After so long, first waiting and then walking, Dale has absolutely no complaints about how Harry appears before him now. Because Harry is the only thing he wants to see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings:
> 
> 1\. Depiction of starvation and wasting syndrome.  
> 2\. Depiction of scarring from injuries related to radiation exposure and chemical warfare agents.
> 
> And now, for the big admission: this is almost certainly the last fic I'm posting for these two. I've had a pretty good run (over a year in fact!), but my muse seems to have finally run dry. So first of all, thank you to anybody who has left kudos or especially given me comments/contacted me on Tumblr, you guys are a treat. Secondly I am still writing, just other stuff. There's more than 140 fics I have on here, so if you poke around on my works listing you might find something else you like. Cheers, guys! :)

**Author's Note:**

> Updates are on Saturdays.
> 
> All my Twin Peaks fics can be found [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&include_work_search%5Brelationship_ids%5D%5B%5D=127943&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bexcluded_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bcrossover%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_from%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_to%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_from%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_to%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&user_id=Aaron_The_8th_Demon).
> 
> Comments are welcomed, encouraged, and greatly appreciated :)


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